Fifth International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies

Abstract

Tourism development is pursued as both a peace-strengthening and key economic growth strategy among developing nations such as the Philippines. However, the increasing pervasiveness of involuntary Tourism Development-Induced Displacement and Resettlement (TDIDR) of marginalized communities has challenged these notions. As TDIDR remains a backdrop of extant studies, minimal research has explicitly studied the phenomenon and its impacts on affected communities. This study employs an exploratory research strategy to answer these gaps. Patungan Cove is chosen as the study site for its location within the tourism economic zone of Nasugbu, Batangas, and its decades-long land conflict with various developers including the Hamilo Coast mega-resort project. Methodologically, this paper pursues two directions: 1) identifying the case’s elements of of TDIDR using Devine and Ojeda’s conceptual ideas on violence and dispossession, and Harvey’s notions of “accumulation by dispossession;” 2) drawing on Cernea’s Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction (IRR) Model to determine the phenomenon’s perceived resettlement risks, and socio-economic impacts to non-evicted members of the fisherfolk community. Through multiple qualitative data collection methods, the study shows that the elements of TDIDR in the fishing village appear to mirror the features of land grabbing, that perceived resettlement risks are centered on livelihoods, and that the phenomenon brought adverse impacts even to the non-evicted community. The paper posits that TDIDR in Patungan is the product of unequal power relations of contested development resulting in the impoverishment of communities. Community resistance is found to help mediate this. This study also makes implications for sustainable tourism and inclusive development.